Opinion (Spotlight Weekly)

Development Or Destruction : Kosi Projects

By Dr. AB Thapa

We are at a very critical juncture. Our country should now take crucial decisions on the issue of the Kosi problems. It is up to us to decide whether to choose development or destruction.

In all probability the imminent danger of the Kosi floods to be triggered off by the sudden change of its course is too great to be ignored. Tens of thousands of people in Biratnagar area might perish and many times more could be rendered homeless in the future Kosi floods. People in far greater number would be affected in north-east Bihar also. Luckily, the implementation of the relatively small Sun-Kosi Storage Dam Project at the earliest could provide effective shield from the threat of the Kosi floods for about next 40 to 50 years. If future studies confirmed that there is room for doubt about the capacity of the Sun-Kosi Storage Reservoir alone to control the Kosi floods, we could also think of implementing the small Tamar-1 Storage Dam Project side by side with the Sun-Kosi Dam Project. Thus, we need not rush to implement in very near future the mammoth Kosi Dam Project which has been considered to be indispensable for the safety of life and property of millions in our region.

The Kosi Dam Project is expected to be perhaps the biggest in the whole world in terms of the height of the dam and the total installed capacity of the power station if this project is to be planned to accrue benefits to Nepal to the desired extent. We should beware of unintentional give-away in Kosi development. The optimum Kosi development should not be compromised. A less than optimum dam could preclude optimum development of the Kosi Dam Project for all time. As a result, it is going to take a very long time to complete the detailed study alone of such giant Kosi Dam Project. No wonder it took China about 20 years just to complete the detailed study of the Three Gorges Project which can be considered to be more or less on a par with the proposed Kosi Dam Project in size and also in volume of investment.

Kosi Study Agreement

According to 1997 Kosi Study Agreement between Nepal and India the joint study to construct the Kosi High Dam Project is firmly tied up on Nepal’s initiative with the provision of a 165 km long navigation canal. A 120 km long section of the proposed navigation canal would be in Indian territory. The navigation canal would be linking Nepal with the seaport through Ganges, Bhagirathi and Hoogly rivers

Prior implementation of the Sun-Kosi Dam Project would provide sufficient time to conduct thorough study of the grandiose Kosi Dam Project. Moreover, there is no escaping the fact that we somehow must implement the Sun-Kosi Dam Project ahead of the Kosi Dam Project or else these two projects would be mutually exclusive.

We should have realized a long time ago that the implementation of the Sun-Kosi Dam Project must be at the very top on the list of our priorities. Even according to the study of the Sun-Kosi Dam Project carried out with the assistance of the FAO/UNDP way back in 1960s, the implementation of the Sun-Kosi Dam Project was considered vital to raise the agricultural productivity in Eastern Terai that would have directly helped to improve the living conditions of a vast number of farmers living below the line of poverty.

Size of the Kosi Dam Power Station

Many of us might be astonished to learn that the installed capacity of the Kosi

Dam Hydropower Station could reach 16 million KW or even more if the evaluation criteria used in the determination of the installed capacity of the Karnali Project (Chisapani) is applied to the Kosi High Dam Project too. According to the detailed feasibility study the installed capacity of the Karnali Project (Chisapani) is only 10.8 million KW. Similarly the annual power generation of the Karnali Project ( Chisapani) is about 20 billion KWh, whereas in case of the Kosi High Dam Project, such annual generation could be about 30 billion KWh. As of now the biggest hydropower station already in operation in the whole world is the 12.6 million KW Itaipu Hydropower Station jointly built by the Governments of Paraguay and Brazil. The 18 million KW Three Gorges Project in China is still under construction

Sun-Kosi Dam Project

Nepal could complete the study as well as the implementation of the Sun-Kosi Dam Project within the next 12 years. After the completion of this project about 300,000 ha lands in Nepal Terai would come under year round irrigation. This project would be able to generate annually about 4,000 GWh firm power which is about two times greater than the present total electricity generation in Nepal. The generation cost of the electricity could be only about US $ 1/100 ( one US Cent) per unit if this project is prudently implemented. The Sun-Kosi Dam Project is an environmentally friendly project. This project is indispensable to save the life and property of millions, as a result, this project would not have to bear the brunt of the criticism from the anti-dam lobby.

The Sun-Kosi Dam Project, forerunner of the Kosi Dam Project, should be implemented in time to save the life and property of millions in Nepal and India. It has already been explained that at present the Kosi river is on the verge of shifting to the east far away from its present course, as a result, a vast region of the north-east Bihar also would have been devastated. Because this project is equally vital for the safety of the people in India, it has been already agreed that India would provide financial assistance to conduct detailed study of this project. After the completion of the detailed study, India would be bound to help our country in our efforts to obtain financial assistance for the timely implementation of this project. Needless to say, the surplus Sun-Kosi power could be easily sold to India at a fair price since it is in the interest of our both countries to implement this project as soon as possible.

Kosi Canal Waterway

The use of the Kosi canal for navigation instead of natural river course would allow to develop this very important waterway for Nepal on a par with the waterways that exist in Europe and America. Some of the overwhelming advantages of the canal waterway linking Chatra with the Kursella where Kosi merges with the Ganges are described hereinafter. The distance would be short. The navigation canal would follow the shortest route to the Ganges river Withdrawal of water from the river for irrigation or other purposes would have to be significantly restricted to maintain adequate depths if the natural river channel is to be used for navigation. In case of navigation canal, the water requirement to maintain adequate depths would be very small The entry point of the Kosi navigation canal into the Ganges is near the extreme tail end of this river and thus the Ganges river channel is sure to be quite deep on this stretch allowing to operate relatively large river vessels. Thanks to it, very big river vessels would be able to reach Chatra in Nepal if the Kosi canal waterway is also planned to operate vessels similar in capacity to those plying on the lowermost reach of the Ganges.

Nepal and India have agreed in 1997 to conduct a detailed study at feasibility level for developing a navigable canal waterway extending from Chatra in Nepal to the Kursella, the meeting point of the Kosi River with the Ganges. The Kosi navigation canal will be linked with the National Waterway No.1 of India. The stretch of the waterway between Allahabad and Haldia has been declared the National Waterway No. 1 of India. The total length of this waterway is 1580 km. The National Waterway No.1 of India includes the Bhagirathi, Hoogly and the lower and middle reaches of the Ganges. This waterway can be broadly divided into three sections. They are the Haldia-Farakka, Farakka-Patna, and Patna-Allahabad sections, and the length of each of these sections is 500 km, 480 km, and 600 km respectively

A Panel of Experts

Very recently preparatory works have begun after a long delay aiming at commencing in near future the Indo-Nepal joint study of distinctly three projects on the basis of the 1997 Kosi Study Agreement. They are the Sun-Kosi Dam Project, Kosi Dam Project and Navigation Canal Project to connect Chatra with the Ganges. The complexity and scale of latter two projects would pose serious difficulties even to properly start the proposed studies. Nepal certainly needs external help to guide periodically its survey team and the supervising technical personnel involved in the Kosi study within the Ministry for the following reasons.

The River Kosi is bigger than the Karnali in terms of the total annual water flow, annual volume of the sediments being carried into the Terai from the mountains and other drainage areas. Thus, if it is conservatively presumed on the above grounds that the total storage volume of the Kosi reservoir by comparison with the Karnali reservoir should at least be equal, the total volume of the Kosi storage reservoir would have to be about 39 billion cu. m. The Kosi dam height should be in a range from 335 m to 350 m if the total storage volume of the Kosi reservoir is to be fixed at 39 billion cu. m. At present the highest dam in the world is the Ragun dam in the former Soviet Union. This dam is still under construction though it was expected to be completed many years before. The Kosi Dam can be expected to be the highest in the whole world. Planning as well as the implementation of the dam of this scale is going to be a very big challenge.

Detailed planning of the 165 km long Kosi navigation canal is also going to be a great engineering task. The shape and dimensions of this navigation canal are expected to be similar to those of the Farakka navigation channel. Let us not forget that even countries like the France is now seeking technical advice from Germany to improve its existing navigation canals.

Thus, there is an urgent need to constitute a panel of few renowned foreign experts to help us prepare the program to conduct the detailed feasibility studies of all above mentioned three projects particularly the latter two or else the feasibility studies would prove to be futile exercise. Later on the members of the panel should be visiting Nepal at certain intervals to help us in finding ways to sort out critical technical problems impeding the smooth progress of the detailed feasibility studies.

(Dr. Thapa writes on water resources)